Posted
by
samzenpus
on Sunday October 28, 2012 @07:06PM
from the wait-until-they-drive dept.

An anonymous reader writes "When it comes to abandoned snail shells that hermit crabs expropriate as mobile homes, size matters, for room to grow, room for eggs, and protection from predators. UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Mark Laidre found that terrestrial hermit crabs on the Pacific shore of Costa Rica congregate in aggressive swap meets where one crab is forced from a relatively large shell, whereupon the rest trade up (one loser and multiple winners, pretty good odds). The loser gets the smallest shell, which means likely doom. Laidre and his colleagues note that most hermit crabs live in the ocean, where there are usually enough abandoned shells to go around so most can live, well, hermit-like lives without much interaction with fellow crabs. Not so on land, at least in Costa Rica."

Did you see their response to the DMCA takedown request? The copyrighted data in question was removed from the site itself, and a long explanation, that wonderfully explained the DMCA, Scientology, its greatest and most vocal opponent on the Internet at the time, and how to fight against laws like this was put in its place.

The specific data, OT III, was made available in legal ways and even more attention was garnered than before. Streisand effect wonderfully executed.

Taking the first step towards pervasive censorship always sounds so benevolent since free speech will always be used in some difficult to endure ways, but I would rather have a website full of racists and trolls than lose that free speech. There are plenty of other websites out there where the powers decide what you can and cannot say, The Escapist is a good example of a heavily policed site where goodthink prevails, but I doubt you'll draw much traction on Slashdot. However I fully support your right to ex

The skills could be learned by an individual through experience and imitation, or by the species through adaptation and natural selection. Hmm... how could researchers tell the difference? I guess if you isolated a bunch from birth and then saw what happened when they were thrown onto the killing grounds, you might be able to confirm innate skills if that turns out to be the case.

Occupy doesn't work like that. They all get together and via a complex process of hand signals indicate what they like and don't like. Then they break up into smaller committees, and subcommittees, and breakaway groups, each with their own ideas of what ought to be done about a thing. After several months, nothing has been done, the fort has burned down, the police have kicked everyone out of the park, and the only thing they have in common is that they blame the government for their utter inability to orga

Crabs can also be used as the logic gates to compute certain functions. I kid you not! The Boston Globe [boston.com] had an article about some Japanese researchers who used crabs to design logic gates based on their motion on the beach.

Their swarm computing article (pdf link [complex-systems.com] in the journal Complex Systems) is rather interesting.

Somewhat like social security. Each generation creates a larger shell, only to have the largest one ripped away from them by current retires when social security collapses. At the end of which, the current workforce get the remaining scraps.

More like the average revolution. Everyone sees how there's some fat crab in a big home so everone bands together, kicks the old boss out and a new boss is installed, who is essentially the same dickhead as the old one.

I used to go to Costa Rica during the winters when I was a kid, and I loved watching the hermit crabs. There are TONS of them there. All over the beaches. Crawling in the sand going down to the beach. I actually watched them hijacking shells from each other (although I'd play the good guy and get their shells back sometimes).

This was a pre-Internet, left wing/anarchic/anti-religion British version of Peanuts. I wish I had kept the books...anyway, it featured the Pooliverse. The eyeballs in the sky [theauthent...hers.co.uk]

A stronger crab with a small damaged shell was trying to pry out a weaker one with new shell. He was probably weak from days of siege. I had to apply quite some force to tear them apart. After a brief isolation under toy buckets I set them free and the stronger crab jumped on his prey again, this time literally getting his foot in the door (they use the larger claw as a door).

There is a nice beach restaurant in Samara, Costa Rica, that I can recommend if you want to see them congregate in huge numbers, right on the sandy restaurant floor.

American socialism?That's a great talking point.... Until you look at the numbers.

America's wealthiest have gotten that way by indexing wages to inflation for the last few decades and then collecting the fruits of our enormous economic growth.

It also doesn't hurt that they've been bribing^W lobbying for rules in their favor since the Great Depression kicked off strong reforms.

Seriously, go back and read what the founding fathers had to say and look hard at what they did.They understood that creating a monied aristocracy was a terrible thing and their taxation policies and ideologies reflected that.

Seriously, go back and read what the founding fathers had to say and look hard at what they did.
They understood that creating a monied aristocracy was a terrible thing and their taxation policies and ideologies reflected that.

We are envious of what you have acquired, therefore we'll all team up and seize it.

You complain that it is socialism, yet I see it as the purest form of capitalism. One is able to influence physical force, which is the rawest from of power to gain what they want. John Ghalt would be proud, the lead antagonist was able to gain what they desired though using whatever means they had. Why do you complain about this? Utilizing the masses to gain what they desired has always been a mainstay of capitalism. The crabs are just ahead of the curve and an example of winner take all society. Think t

Except they are divided up by size. While an individual shell can't be shared, by re-arranging the shells the crabs now have a redistribution of the wealth. Bumping everyone up and the biggest one out, everyone but one gets an upgrade.

It's like someone cracked open the parent poster's skull and stirred the contents around with a fork; mostly random and somewhat nauseating. It's strange that people like this somehow manage to operate a PC to the level that they can even post to slashdot; but there seem to be an increassing number. Or is it just a bot?

Damn, I was just reading it today - I'm at the point where Roland got the aspirin from Eddie and is feeling better... just yesterday I read the part where the "lobstrosities" (are they called that in the English version? I'm reading the Finnish translation) bit Rolands Fingers off...

The Finnish version calls them "rapuolento", which would crudely translate to "crab being" or "crab creature" - though in English it doesn't work the same way as "rapuolento" clearly sounds like it's not exactly a crab but something like a crab...

I guess the word "crab/rapu" was used instead of "lobster/hummeri" because lobsters are not that common in Finland... Or actually maybe because "hummeriolento" would really feel ridiculous to us:p Language differences, I think the lobstrosities is really good one

one crab is forced from a relatively large shell, whereupon the rest trade up (one loser and multiple winners

Reminds me of what's happening in Paris, as the super-rich are fleeing to neighboring countries ahead of the upcoming 75% tax. This is causing the prices of luxury Paris homes to decline in value, allowing the less-affluent to afford them, who then sell their former homes to people further down and... well, you get the idea.

Now, if those crabs were here in the U.S., 99% of the crabs would be stuck in the same size shell for the past 20 years while a couple of crabs had gargantuan shells (as well as many "vacation" shells on a variety of coasts). But at least they'd be creating jobs for the other crabs... by having them clean their spare shells or something.:)

Being a crazy biologist, I thought it would be fun to see how hermit crabs react to the availability of an unexpected big Rolls Royce shell. They'd been congregating near the showers, so I put it there. At night there was a seething mass of hermits swapping. Shells are at a premium, and I'd noticed earlier that the smallest one was making do with a discarded toothpaste tube cap. It looked very sad.

Well, the next morning there was no sign of the orgy. No hermit crabs to be seen, no discarded shells, no de